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Why I’m Stuggling, and What I Need To Do About It

I prefer to tackle one major thing at a time. That way, I can devote all my energy to that one thing. Any more is not my idea of living a slow paced lifestyle. I have a 8 days before I have to move out, and my boyfriend and I haven’t found an apartment. I don’t even want to talk any more about the moving situation because I’ll get too infuriated. And my thesis (a fiction piece) doesn’t even have a conclusion. The story isn’t finished. I have 4 weeks to finish, edit and polish it for a final review.

Many people, when under pressure to “get it all done,” thrive. I, however, tend to choke. I don’t like the pressure. Something usually get’s abandoned when it gets to be too difficult. I’m a quitter. There, I’ve said it. That expression, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”… Well, I get going right the heck out of there. I don’t like the hard road. If something isn’t working, I’m the first to turn around and back right out the door. However, quitting apartment hunting would cause undue and unintended disappointment and heartbreak for my significant other, and quitting my thesis (or at least postponing its completion until the spring) would result in an inordinate amount of wasted resources.

But do I really have too much going on? Am I required to do more than what is expected for an ordinary human? Maybe, maybe not…So here are a few things I need to do get from overwhelmed and struggling to productive and successful:

Accept the fact that I’m doing the best I can: Every moment that I’m relaxing, I feel like I should be looking for apartments or working on my thesis. Not to mention I’ve been neglecting this blog. There is a guilt that comes when I’m not attending my responsibilities. But the reality is, the last thing I want to do after spending 6 hours on the computer at work researching or doing tedious data entry is go online to scour scam-jammed Craigslist, write a blog on the internet, or edit 50+ pages of my thesis. I’m doing the best I can, please forgive me if I fall short for a little while or a month.

Change my attitude: The only thing that could fix this right now is an attitude change. It won’t find an apartment, and it certainly won’t finish my thesis. What it would do is give me hope. And with hope comes perseverance. I need to say: we WILL find the perfect apartment. We WILL find an apartment in the right location at the right price. I need to quit the blame game, nitpicking and complaining. Nothing traumatic happens if I don’t find somewhere in 8 days: I have a place to go once I move out of my apartment; I won’t be homeless. And we’ll have about three more weeks to find somewhere. As for my thesis, I have plenty of time; I just need to get to work.

Create a plan: I need to create a plan for finishing my thesis and finding a place. I have my day planner calendar to help me from feeling overwhelmed. I need to sit down and schedule the times that I will get down to work. Scheduling and planning are two things that I can do quite well. It’s just following through that is difficult.

Work my plan: My dad always says “plan your work, and work your plan.” I just need to enact a little discipline on the thesis end, be a little more collaborative with my boyfriend on finding somewhere and everything should work out okay.

See, I’m already feeling a little better about all of this. How do you persevere when you’re struggling?